Thursday, March 28

The telephone number of Rita Barberá’s brother-in-law and head of the ‘Azud case’ plot: direct line with nine PP ministers


On the morning of Tuesday, April 2, 2019, punctually at 8:37 a.m., the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard rang the bell of a house on Calle de las Artes Gráficas in Valencia, home of the sister, brother-in-law and the nieces of the deceased mayor Rita Barberá. They exhibited a search warrant signed by Pepa Tarodo, the head of the Court of Instruction number 13 of Valencia in charge of the secret investigation of the ‘Azud case’ together with the anti-corruption prosecutor Pablo Ponce. The lawyer José María Corbín opened the door of his house to the judicial delegation, where his daughters María José, María Rita and María Asunción were found, according to the entry and registration certificate. toton, Corbín’s wife and Rita Barberá’s sister and chief of staff, was not in the house when the uniformed men entered at breakfast time. At 09.01, the lawyer who assisted the family entered the door of the residence.

The urban corruption plot of Rita Barberá’s brother-in-law moved seven million in massive bites

Know more

The UCO investigators, who also searched Corbín’s office on Calle del Grabador Esteve, were looking for documentation, laptops and telephones to obtain evidence about the alleged plot of massive corruption, linked to urban planning, which was allegedly directed by Rita Barberá’s brother-in-law , a mayor who garnered very large electoral majorities during the eternal 24 years that she held the leadership of the Valencia City Council. More than enough time to accumulate contacts at the highest level in the world of politics and business, the muddy terrain through which the entire family moved.

In the registry, the agents of the armed institute found a mobile phone of the iPhone brand belonging to José María Corbín. The device, sealed in a bag by the Civil Guard, contains one of the best agendas in Valencia, as shown by the list of contacts reproduced in the summary of the ‘Azud case’ to which elDiario.es has had access. Eight ministers of the PP, a dozen ministers of the Generalitat Valenciana and even a general of the Civil Guard.

With that phone glued to his ear, Corbín managed an alleged systematic bribery payment network to officials and politicians of both the PP and the PSPV-PSOE. The agenda of the lawyer’s iPhone also includes relevant socialist leaders, then in the opposition. The user of it is the main defendant in the “Azud case” that investigates the alleged crimes of influence peddling, prevarication, false documents, money laundering, illicit association and criminal organization.

‘Phone map’ of power in Valencia

Thus, the brother-in-law of Rita Barberá, whose network of alleged massive corruption moved seven million euros in bribes, had a direct telephone line with politicians who were PP ministers, such as Rodrigo Rato, Javier Arenas, María Dolores de Cospedal, José Manuel García Margallo, Jaime Mayor Oreja, Ángel Acebes, José María Michavila, Ana Mato or Ana Pastor. Also with Juanma Moreno, current president of the Junta de Andalucía, with Manuel Lamela who was a popular councilor of the Community of Madrid or with the former socialist leader Jaime Lissavetzky. In addition to landline numbers of the Palacio de la Zarzuela and the Vice Presidency of the Government.



Closer to the capital of the Turia, Corbín also had the mobile phones of more than a dozen politicians who have been ministers of the PP in the Generalitat Valenciana with Eduardo Zaplana and Francisco Camps as presidents: the late Juan Cotino, Esteban González Pons, Vicente Rambla, Víctor Campos, Gerardo Camps, Manuel Cervera, Belén Juste, Mario Flores, Alicia de Miguel, José Ramón García Antón, Milagrosa Martínez and Fernando Vilalonga.

The privileged phone book also includes Ricardo Costa, former general secretary of the popular Valencians; Alfonso Rus and Carlos Fabra, former presidents of the councils of Valencia and Castellón, and Luis Díaz Alperi, former mayor of Alicante. From Alfonso Grau, the former deputy mayor of Valencia who received two million euros from the alleged plot, there are two numbers: a landline and a mobile. And, of course, Corbín had the contacts of a large part of Rita Barberá’s councilors scheduled: the late María José Alcón, Alfonso Novo, Lourdes Bernal, Félix Crespo, Cristóbal Grau and Mari Ángeles Ramón Llin.

The socialist opposition to his sister-in-law was also included among his contacts: the mobile phones of Joan Ignasi Pla, former general secretary of the PSPV-PSOE, appear; of Rafael Rubio, the man of the party specialized in urban planning and investigated for the alleged collection of a bribe of 300,000 euros, and of the deceased Carmen Alborch, who faced Rita Barberá in the municipal elections of 2007 to the that the popular ones presented themselves financially doped, according to the investigation of the ‘Taula case’, the embryo of the case that has uncovered the prolonged —almost historical— alleged high-level hustle and bustle of Rita Barberá’s family investigated in the ‘Azud case ‘.

Corbín’s cell phone also had in the contact list the telephone numbers of journalists such as María Consuelo Reyna, businessmen such as Jesús Wolstein or even the number of the one who was general chief of the VI zone of the Civil Guard for seven years, Cristóbal Santandreu Ferrer.

José María Corbín’s agenda, a sort of telephone map of power in Valencia and beyond, shows who Rita Barberá’s brother-in-law was talking to. However, the investigating judge keeps the rest of the content of the iPhone (SMS, conversations with messaging applications) under summary secrecy.



www.eldiario.es